From time to time I get to share, on various social networks, a really nice animated GIF I stumble upon. During the last few months I got to share a few amazing GIFs. I don’t always know the origin of the animations, but when I do, I’m happy to give credit and point to the person who created them. So… There have been numerous times I shared some really amazing animated GIFs, but couldn’t find who did them. I had the strong feeling from their look and style, that they were all done by the same person. And then, a few days ago, I was able to trace that person. That extremely talented creator was Oleg Beresnev. I reached out to Oleg to compliment him about his amazing work. He was very kind, and was able to spare a few minutes of his time to answer a few questions.

You can read the short Q&A session with Oleg Beresnev below, and admire a bit of his work, of course.

ilikethesepixels: can you share some background about yourself?

Oleg Beresnev: Alright. My name is OBeresnev, I’m 28 years old. Currently I’m living in Krasnoyarsk, Russia. I’m a graphic designer, illustrator and just an awesome guy 🙂

ILTP: Do you have any kind of formal design study?

OB: Well… I’ve studied Architecture, in the Czech Technical University in Prague. But regarding my skills in animation/illustration, I’ve developed these by myself, on my own spare time.

ILTP: There’s a big leap between architecture and illustration/animation. Why did you make the transition?

OB: I don’t know. I always liked drawing stuff, ever since I was a child… at one point I just decided, that being an illustrator will give me more chances and opportunities in my life. It seems like I was quite right. 😀 Now days I get to do work with many clients, but not only. Almost all the shots in my Dribble page were done just for my own pleasure 😉

ILTP: How long have you been illustrating/animating?

OB: I started illustrating (some small stuff) about 3 or 4 years ago… not so long ago. I familiar myself with animation, only about 2 years ago.

ILTP: What tools do you use to illustrate and animate?

OB: For Illustration (or some 3D art, that I do as well), I usually use Adobe Illustrator, Qubicle and Blender3D. Sometimes I use Adobe Photoshop, but not often. For Animation/3D Animation I’m usually using Adobe After Effects, Moho Studio, Blender3D and a lot of different plugins for these guys :). I recently tried to use Spine, but for some reason I dropped it :). Ah, and, I might also use Adobe Animate for animation from time to time.

ILTP: Can you try and explain what is your work process?

OB: Everything begins with some simple pencil sketches. It’s pretty essential, starting with some drafts to imagine how it should look like in the end. Afterward, I’m creating vectors out of the pencil sketches. When I need to animate, I prefer to use a vector illustration as the base for it. It’s much easier that way.

ILTP: Where do you get your ideas and inspiration from?

OB: From everywhere. Different cool games, different cool artists.
A few games I really like are Alto’s Adventure, Monuments Valley, Terraria… and some others :). Regarding artists, there are plenty of awesome guys out there, and they all provide me great inspiration. Escher and Miyazaki… A lot of ideas to my work were conceived from their creations.

ILTP: Where can people find you, and get to see some more of your work?

OB: They could come to Krasnoyarsk, and we could have a cup of beer together, there are a lot of lovely places in here! hahaha, just kidding :D.

I’ve got my own site – it’s beresnev.design. Also, you could observe my works on Dribbble and Behance. And surely, you could simply write me an email o.beresnev@icloud.com or contact me via Skype ( beresnev.design)

ILTP: thank you so much for your time 🙂

Have a look at some more of Oleg Beresnev’s work below. If you like what you see, you can also head over to creative market, where he sells some of his creations.